The tool bag lost by NASA astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper during an ISS space walk has been filmed sailing over Earth by a veteran satellite observer over the weekend.
SpaceWeather.com has a video recording of the backpack-sized bag's extended lesson in basic Newtonian physics made by Kevin Fetter from his backyard observatory …

How much?

sick of this

How can this darn drop still be an issue? They lost a darn 100k bag, so what? Shit happens. Each and every launch costs about as much as it would take to end hunger in Africa (feel free to replace with shame of your choice). People DIE exploring space. I remember when people cared about the whole thing, and not only when another shuttle goes down. If all the excitement NASA can generate these days comes from someone dropping a greasy bag o' bolts, something is very wrong.

The handbag has landed

That is never a grease gun

I looked at the video, that's never a grease gun unless there's some new euphemism I'm not yet aware of. I can only assume one of the female astronauts took one look at her male colleagues and added the useful little implement to the - ahem - Tool kit.

If it hits someone...

@Vacuum.Head

Not to worry; I was using hyperbole. As an old space buff, I _do_ know approximately how much debris we _know_ to have cluttering our skies... though that does not stop me from wishing I didn't. Thanks for the links!

Spacetravel is just like living on Earth

The builders still haven't finished your dream home. You call for a plumber, takes ages to arrive, and still can't fix the problem. Someone goes out for a walk and looses their bag. The local buses are clapped out, about to be junked, but there's no plans to buy new ones. I'm only surprised that the bag didn't also contain a laptop with NASA's entire staff details...

@Vacuum.Head

Your information is incomplete and insufficient to allow us to locate the object in question. We also need to know the RA, Dec. and precession velocity of the ascending node, as well as the time of separation and the RA and Dec. of the ISS at that time, in order to be able to track it. :)

Mine's the grease-stained one with the much thumbed ephemeris in the pocket, ta...

Insert...

Magnitude 8

The magnitude measure of stars originate with the ancient Greeks, which had magnitude 1 as the brightest stars in the sky and magnitude 6 as the faintest visible with the naked eye on a clear night. Assuming equal relative decrease in brightness, an increase of 1 in magnitude roughly halves the brightness. Modern magnitudes are defined so a magnitude 6 start is 1/100th the brightness of a magnitude 1 star, which makes the decrease in brightness roughly by 2.5 per step. Also, the brightest stars may now have negative magnitude (Sirius has magnitude about -1.5).

A magnitude 8 object is about as bright as Neptune, which you do need a telescope to see.

How Much??

deus non machina ex

"Anybody care to place a wager {By Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 25th November 2008 21:28 GMT} as to how long it takes for someone to use this toolkit as a handy deus ex machina in a two-bit SF offering?"

You're late for that one... that entire theme has already been used by R.A. Heinlein, Norbert Dillich, Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, and a whole load of others in the mid-50s, and some others since then.

Sorry... not really an original theme. Try Kurt Vonnegut for a pretty unique take on the general idea.